Gentiva in 2024 and 2025 is laser-focused on staff retention and building out its advanced illness management platform Illumia Health.

Workforce shortages have plagued the hospice community for years, along with the health care sector at large. This has led to a sharpened focus among many providers on hiring and keeping employees, particularly when it comes to clinicians.

Gentiva, among other initiatives, is investing in staff education to help develop clearer career paths, stave off burnout and boost retention, according to Chief Clinical Officer Jacqueline Lopez-Devine.

“Education is very, very important to the concept of staff retention — taking newer staff that walk into the industry. We have thoughtful training programs that teach them even the concept of work-life balance, professional balance,” Lopez-Devine told Hospice News. “It’s really important that, as organizations, we teach our team members those concepts of joy in work, taking care of self and professional boundaries. That’s what’s going to make us different in some of these other health care industries that maybe don’t take the time.”

Gentiva is a portfolio company of the private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CDR). The Atlanta-based provider emerged from the former hospice and personal care segments of Kindred at Home. CDR in 2022 purchased a 60% stake from the insurance mammoth Humana, Inc., (NYSE: HUM) for $2.8 billion. The firm later rebranded the hospice provider as Gentiva.

The company has arisen as one of the largest providers in the nation, which expanded significantly last year via acquisitions. In 2023, Gentiva was among the comparatively few companies that actively pursued large hospice deals. Late last year, the company purchased the hospice, home health and palliative assets of the nonprofit health system ProMedica, including its Heartland Hospice brand. Financial terms were undisclosed.

To reduce turnover, some stakeholders within Gentiva are seeking to innovate using tools and methodologies like LEAN/Six Sigma.

“Retaining our talent is probably the biggest challenge that we need to work on as an industry, and then taking that talent and growing their skill sets,” Lopez-Devine said. “We want to retain our best talent and get creative in how we are going to tackle that, so really challenging the team to use some of these [LEAN/Six Sigma] techniques to get to where we need to get to be to solve the problems.”

Also high on Gentiva’s list of priorities is further development and scaling of its Advanced Illness Management (AIM) model, which is operated by its Illumia Health subsidiary, Lopez-Devine indicated.

In 2023, Gentiva began looking for ways to care for a broader swatch of the seriously ill population, including those who were not expected to recover but were also not yet eligible for hospice. This led to the development of the company’s AIM program.

The AIM program uses a risk assessment tool to design a clinical pathway that addresses patient needs at the lowest cost. The tool factors in clinical concerns as well as the home environment, caregiver resources and social determinants of health.

The care model is driven primarily by nurse practitioners who visit as often as once a week. Patients enrolled in the program also receive services from nurses, case managers and social workers. Clinicians are reachable 24/7, including through telehealth support.

“To really cultivate [AIM], we are working to build strategic partnerships. It’s only been like a year that we’ve been involved with that, but we’re seeing some really good outcomes. So we’re going to continue to drive focus into that area,” Lopez-Devine said. “That’s a major priority for us as well.”